


Treason

by Laylah



Category: Suikoden V
Genre: Comfort, Gen, Gladiators, M/M, Scars, Trust
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-03-13
Updated: 2008-03-13
Packaged: 2017-10-22 13:49:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/238714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laylah/pseuds/Laylah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shoon knows almost all the stories by now, has coaxed them from Zegai’s lips in terse, quiet phrases in trade for the warmth of Shoon’s hands kneading the tension out of Zegai’s shoulders at the end of the day.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Treason

They say among the gladiators that you should never trust a man who has no scars. It means he’s either new and clueless, or else so dangerous that nobody can lay a hand on him. Shoon figures if scars make a man trustworthy, then Zegai has to be the most trustworthy man he’s ever seen, even being from Armes. Some of them barely show against the darkness of his skin, but he has them everywhere. And every scar has a story, from the broad swipe of parallel lines across his thigh—the claws of an old ulse-lord—to the thin seam on his face that his paint usually hides except from really close up—the whip-tail of some sort of giant lizard that doesn’t even live in Falena. Shoon knows almost all the stories by now, has coaxed them from Zegai’s lips in terse, quiet phrases in trade for the warmth of Shoon’s hands kneading the tension out of Zegai’s shoulders at the end of the day.

He still doesn’t know all of them, though he’s getting close now. He finds them half by touch in the dim light left in the gladiators’ wing at night, traces the textures of them. Tonight his hand stops at the base of Zegai’s rib cage, on the left. “This one?” he says sofly. Some of the other gladiators are trying to sleep already, and quiet is as close as anyone comes to privacy here. “Where did you get this one?”

“Here,” Zegai answers. Here. Stormfist. The arena. That explains why it’s so ragged, under Shoon’s fingertips—there’s no healing allowed on the arena ground, so the wound would have lasted long enough to cause his body real harm. Shoon has a few injuries like that, like the bent knuckle on his left hand from where he broke his finger during his first match.

“Who were you fighting?” Shoon asks. It takes a lot to make Zegai string together more than three or four words at a time, but sometimes he’ll tell an entire story if it’s about a good battle. “I thought you were unefeated since you got here.”

Zegai shakes his head. “Not a match,” he says. “Politics.”

“You mean—” Shoon’s stomach tightens up, the way it does when he’s really angry. “Just because you weren’t born here, that shouldn’t—” Only he knows it _does_ matter, to plenty of the people in Falena and especially in Stormfist. The other gladiators tried to warn him about it when he started trying to make friends with Zegai, and most of them stopped talking to him completely when he started warming Zegai’s bed.

“Hush,” Zegai says, his fingertips pressed to Shoon’s lips. “Not worth it.”

Shoon stiffens. How can he say that? How can he act like it doesn’t _matter_? The scar is as long as Shoon’s palm is broad, thick and raised. He turns his head, so Zegai’s fingers slide against his cheek. “I hope you hurt him, at least,” he says.

Zegai nods. “Enough,” he says. He slides an arm around Shoon’s shoulders. “This won’t last,” he says, and the fact that he speaks without prompting is so strange that Shoon goes very still just to listen. “Not for me, not for you. This system breeds weakness. Change is coming.” It’s a good thing he’s so quiet, his voice like the rumble of the earth, something Shoon feels more than hears. It sounds like a challenge, like treason, to say something like that about the arena, about the Games, about one of the traditions that Falena’s had for as long as anyone can remember. It’s even more serious, maybe, than coming from an enemy nation. “So keep your guard up, and don’t let this wear you down.” His hand covers the slave tattoo on Shoon’s arm, callused and warm. “You have a warrior’s heart. More than this awaits you.”

Treason it may be, but Shoon won’t repeat that to anyone.


End file.
